Artists, thinkers, activists, academics, and community leaders gather for a symposium of conversations, performances, and open studios exploring artistic, social, and political perspectives on the extraordinary world-changing events of 1968, the fifty years that followed, and the promise of the next fifty years. Artistic interventions and multi-disciplinary conversations across visual and performing arts, activism, literature, film, and poetry will take place in the historic period rooms—including the Board of Officers Room, Veterans Room, and second-floor Company Rooms.

This is an interactive VR experience as well as immersive oral history archive in the making that brings together the past and present of one block of Broadway given Broadway is part of a matrix of Indigenous Lenape trails that connects to the Greater Northeast Region.

Long before Henry Hudson’s arrival in 1609, Manhattan or Manaháhtaan, as originally named by the Indigenous Lenape people, was a place of gathering and exchange amongst diverse nations. Today, Broadway runs along a portion of the original matrix of trails that connected Manaháhtaan to the broader northeast region and the Great Lakes. Artist Beatrice Glow and The Wayfinding Project at the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU partnered with Alecz Inca of Highway 101, ETC (Experiential Tech Community) to build Mannahatta VR, an interactive virtual reality experience that brings together the past and present of one Broadway block. This project was developed through consultation with Native culture bearers, ecologists, educators and technologists. In the process, we ask ourselves how can we expand knowledge of Indigenous Manhattan? What does a sustainable Indigenous future look like?